Chapter 7 - Depositions and Dirty Laundry
The third-floor conference room of Vance, Sterling & Holbrook smelled of lemon oil, old parchment, and impending disaster.
A long mahogany table dominated the center of the room, flanked by eight black leather executive chairs. On our side sat Dave Vance, looking relaxed in a rumpled charcoal suit, alongside Michael and me. In front of Dave rested three neat stacks of color-coded manila folders, each topped with a laminated legal exhibit label.
Across from us sat Brittany, her private attorney—a visibly sweating young associate named Kevin Miller—and Richard Brooks.
Sherry had attempted to enter the room forty minutes ago, wearing an all-black ensemble that looked like a cross between a Victorian mourning dress and a courtroom costume, but Dave Vance had calmly informed her that non-party observers were barred from sworn deposition proceedings. She was currently pacing the hallway outside, her heels clicking against the terrazzo floor like a metronome of anxious fury.
Richard sat slouched in his chair, a pair of dark sunglasses perched on his nose despite the room’s muted lighting. He had an unbuttoned collar, no tie, and an unopened pack of nitroglycerin tablets conspicuously placed beside his water glass—a stage prop meant to scream *fragile heart condition.*
“For the record,” Kevin Miller began, adjusting his cheap wire-rimmed glasses, “we reiterate our formal objection to these proceedings under medical hardship grounds. Mr. Richard Brooks suffered an acute cardiovascular episode less than forty-eight hours ago—”
“Let’s clear that up first,” Dave Vance interrupted, not even looking up from his legal pad. He slid a crisp white document across the table toward Miller. “Exhibit D. A certified copy of the emergency intake summary from Oakridge Memorial, dated Tuesday night at 11:14 PM. Patient presented with subjective chest tightness. Troponin levels: normal. EKG: normal. Blood pressure: 128 over 82. Discharged at 12:45 AM with a diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease and an over-the-counter famotidine prescription.”
Dave finally looked over the rims of his reading glasses directly at Richard.
“Unless your client intends to claim under oath that heartburn constitutes an acute myocardial infarction, Counsel, I suggest you advise him to take off the sunglasses and sit up straight. Perjury in an evidentiary hearing carries a statutory minimum of six months.”
Richard’s jaw twitched. Slowly, deliberately, he took off the dark glasses, his eyes burning into his son Michael.
“You’re really going to let this happen, Mike?” Richard’s voice was a low, guttural rasp. “You’re going to sit there while this ambulance chaser humiliates your sister and drags your father through the mud over some bruised feelings and a trash can full of cupcakes?”
Michael didn’t flinch. For thirty-two years, that specific tone—the disappointed, authoritative rumble of Richard Brooks—had made Michael fold like cheap paper. But today, Michael sat with his hands clasped flat on the table, his posture upright and calm.
“My name is Michael, Dad,” he said, his voice quiet, steady, and devoid of anger. “And this isn’t about cupcakes. It’s about the fact that Brittany charged Jessica twenty-five hundred dollars for a party designed to humiliate my daughter, and then had Mom threaten Brenda Cole’s commercial mortgage when Brenda refused to destroy the billing records.”
Brittany’s head snapped toward her father, panic flickering behind her meticulously contoured face. “What is he talking about? Dad, what did Mom do?”
“Quiet, Brittany,” Kevin Miller muttered, raising a hand.
“Let’s discuss Brittany’s event business,” Dave Vance said smoothly, ignoring the attorney and opening the second thick manila folder. “Brittany Brooks, operating as ‘Bespoke Moments LLC.’ On September 14th, you billed Mrs. Jessica Brooks twenty-five hundred dollars via an electronic invoice marked ‘Specialized Dietary Event Planning and Nut-Free Catering Execution.’ Correct?”
Brittany swallowed hard. She looked at Miller, who gave a reluctant nod.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That was the package fee.”
“And according to your promotional materials,” Dave continued, sliding a printout across the table, “Bespoke Moments guarantees, and I quote, ‘White-glove dietary security, sourced exclusively through certified, allergen-free commercial kitchens.’ Did you source the catering for Lily Brooks’s party from a certified allergen-free commercial kitchen?”
Brittany picked at the edge of her manicured acrylic nail. “I… I used trusted local bakers.”
“You used three unlicensed home hobbyists whom you found on a Facebook marketplace swap group,” Dave countered without missing a beat. He produced three receipts with green exhibit tabs. “Itemized receipt one: four dozen almond-flour macarons, paid via personal Venmo to a Mrs. Sarah Jenkins for seventy-five dollars. Itemized receipt two: three dozen pistachio-topped cupcakes from a hobbyist in East Lake for forty dollars. Itemized receipt three: bulk party snack mix containing unrefined walnut oil and cashew pieces, purchased at the wholesale club for twenty-eight dollars.”
Dave leaned forward, his voice dropping into a lethal, rhythmic cadence.
“Total actual vendor expenditure: one hundred and forty-three dollars and twelve cents. You retained two thousand, three hundred and fifty-six dollars and eighty-eight cents of my client’s money. And when the birthday child asked if she could eat a single item on the table, you announced to twenty-two other children that she was an inconvenience and told her to go find scraps from her mother.”
“It was a standard management fee!” Brittany burst out, her voice rising to a shrill screech. “That’s what event planners do! We curate! We style! I spent eight hours hanging balloon garlands! I bought the customized gold ribbon! You think my time is free? You think because she’s family I’m supposed to work for minimum wage?”
“You didn’t style an event, Brittany,” Dave said cold as ice. “You executed a bait-and-switch fraud on a consumer, compounded by gross negligence regarding an explicitly disclosed medical disability. But that’s only the misdemeanor portion of our morning.”
Dave slid the third folder forward. This one was red.
Richard’s eyes narrowed as the red folder hit the center of the table.
“This,” Dave said, tapping the cardboard, “is the subpoenaed operating account for Bespoke Moments LLC from Oakridge Municipal Bank—where Richard Brooks serves as Senior Vice President of Commercial Lending.”
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“Over the past fourteen months,” Dave continued, looking directly at Richard, “Brittany’s business account received eighty-four thousand dollars in direct deposits from various wedding and corporate clients. Yet, curiously, sixty-two thousand of those dollars were immediately transferred via automatic clearinghouse directly into a personal account held solely by Richard Brooks.”
Brittany froze. She turned her head toward her father so violently that a strand of her styled hair fell loose across her forehead.
“What?” she breathed. “Dad… what is he talking about? You told me those transfers were for the small business reserve fund! You said you were holding that money in trust so I wouldn’t get hit with self-employment tax!”
Richard didn’t look at her. His face had transitioned from performative illness to a dark, mottled purple. “Kevin,” Richard growled at the young lawyer, “shut this down. Now.”
“I can’t, Mr. Brooks,” Miller stammered, pulling at his collar. “They… they have the bank transaction logs. This is discovery. We can’t seal financial records that were processed through your branch.”
“Let me explain the architecture of this little family enterprise,” Dave said, his tone conversational, as if he were reading a weather report. “Richard Brooks loans his daughter seed money to start a boutique event company. When the company takes down payments from brides and corporate events, Richard routes the funds back into his own secondary accounts to cover personal equity deficits resulting from his failed real estate ventures in South County. When vendors like Brenda Cole demand payment, Richard uses the bank’s leverage to threaten their commercial loans to keep them quiet.”
Dave closed the red folder with a sharp, resounding *thwack*.
“That isn’t family drama, Mr. Brooks. That is institutional bank fraud, co-mingling of personal and business funds, and grand larceny. And unless we reach a very specific, very immediate settlement on my terms, this complete dossier will be on the desk of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the State Attorney General’s Special Crimes Division by two o’clock this afternoon.”
Brittany covered her face with both hands and began to sob—not tears of repentance, but the ugly, hyperventilating wails of someone who realized that the foundation beneath her feet had just collapsed into a sinkhole.
“Dad?” she choked out between sobs. “You stole my clients’ deposits? You used my business to hide your debts?”
Richard didn’t answer her. He sat completely motionless, his breathing shallow, his eyes locked onto Michael.
“You’re destroying this family, Michael,” Richard whispered, the words laced with poison. “Everything I built. Thirty years in this town. You’re tearing down your own blood because your wife couldn’t handle a little social slight.”
Michael pushed his chair back and stood up. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t lean over the table. He stood at his full height, looking down at the man who had controlled his life with guilt, shame, and financial intimidation for three decades.
“You destroyed this family the day you decided my daughter’s life was worth less than Brittany’s vanity and your secret bank debts,” Michael said quietly. “Jessica didn’t do this to you. Dave Vance didn’t do this to you. You did this to yourself, Dad. And you did it one lie at a time.”
Michael reached down, took my hand, and squeezed it gently.
“We’ll take the settlement offer Dave drafted,” Michael told Kevin Miller. “Full restitution of Jessica’s twenty-five hundred dollars. Immediate payment of the six thousand dollars owed to Brenda Cole. A formal, public retraction of the slander campaign against my wife. And Brittany’s business license is surrendered to the Secretary of State by Friday.”
“And if I refuse?” Richard hissed.
Dave Vance smiled. It was the smile of a tiger looking at an animal with a broken leg.
May you like
“If you refuse, Richard, I call the federal marshal before I finish my second cup of coffee.”
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